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Speaker 2: The following episode contains references to suicide. If you or
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Speaker 2: the Suicide in Crisis Lifeline by dialing nine eight eight.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Why ye are you thirty five?
Speaker 4: Are you dirty? Sick?
Speaker 3: Are you thirty sack?
Speaker 1: Wow? It's my birthday and you can tell from my
Speaker 1: voice that I am not as excited to turn thirty
Speaker 1: eight as my nephews are. I thought my life would
Speaker 1: look pretty different. My younger self would have guessed that
Speaker 1: i'd be married by now, not single and newly unemployed,
Speaker 1: having just burned out of the tech career. I'd spent
Speaker 1: so much of my life building. I remember birthdays as
Speaker 1: a kid. When I turned seven, my dad taught me
Speaker 1: how to ride a bike for the first time. Life was,
Speaker 1: in some ways so much simpler, but still kind of terrifying.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the Catholic Church, and not just
Speaker 1: the occasional Sunday Mass. As a kid and throughout my
Speaker 1: early adult years, I actually wanted to become a priest.
Speaker 1: This might sound intense, but for Catholics, the purpose of
Speaker 1: life isn't to become a good person or even to
Speaker 1: become a priest, but it's to become a saint. Saints,
Speaker 1: they said, were united with the people here on earth
Speaker 1: from beyond the grave in a kind of mystical way.
Speaker 1: At first, this scared me, thinking about the dad having
Speaker 1: an influence on the living. But the saints they wanted
Speaker 1: to help us. I remember praying to Saint Anthony when
Speaker 1: I couldn't find my pencil case, and he totally came through.
Speaker 1: But if you had told me that someone who died
Speaker 1: who I'd never met, would take me from my life
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, compel me to spend the next three
Speaker 1: years following her story and make me confront my biggest
Speaker 1: fears in real time, I wouldn't have believed you that
Speaker 1: would be taking this mystical concept too far.
Speaker 5: Hi, my name's Salana, And last summer I went to
Speaker 5: Camp Watiwa and one of the most profound experiences I
Speaker 5: had was there on the rock climbing wall.
Speaker 1: This is Alana Chen. She's sixteen and standing in front
Speaker 1: of the Rocky Mountains where she's attending an outdoor Catholic
Speaker 1: summer camp.
Speaker 5: And as I was going, I was climbing really excited.
Speaker 5: But eventually I got to this place where I was
Speaker 5: just stuck on the rock, and the people that were
Speaker 5: helping me were trying to tell me which way to
Speaker 5: go so that I could keep going, keep climbing up,
Speaker 5: and I just didn't want to listen, so for a
Speaker 5: while I blocked them out, but I was still stuck.
Speaker 5: So I was just stuck there holding cleaning on.
Speaker 1: Alana's from a small town outside of Boulder, Colorado. She
Speaker 1: works at an ice cream shop called Sweet Cow. Her
Speaker 1: favorite flavor is chocolate oatmeal stout.
Speaker 5: And eventually I just got more and more tired and weaker,
Speaker 5: and they just kept saying, okay, just let go. If
Speaker 5: you let go of the rock, like the rope will
Speaker 5: just swing you back to that straight path, and still
Speaker 5: I didn't want to listen to them.
Speaker 1: Alana's really good at ultimate frisbee. Her team makes it
Speaker 1: to the state finals, but she's a little different from
Speaker 1: the rest of her teammates. That's because since she was thirteen,
Speaker 1: she's wanted to become a nun.
Speaker 5: But eventually, as I just sat there, I just heard
Speaker 5: in my heart this voice. I was just saying, let go,
Speaker 5: Just let go of anything you're holding on to your
Speaker 5: pride or your fear, and the ropes will catch you.
Speaker 5: And in reality, it was like God would catch me
Speaker 5: in that moment because I could just let go and
Speaker 5: not be afraid anymore.
Speaker 1: I remember the day I learned about Alana. It was
Speaker 1: December twenty nineteen, and I was scrolling on my phone
Speaker 1: when I came across the news of a girl from Boulder, Colorado,
Speaker 1: who wanted to become a nun, was told to keep
Speaker 1: a secret, and who died at the age of twenty four,
Speaker 1: with her entire life ahead.
Speaker 3: Of her breaking from overnight.
Speaker 4: Louisville police are searching for a missing twenty four year
Speaker 4: old woman.
Speaker 6: I never SAIDs Adde Guahardo sat down with her family
Speaker 6: and Addie.
Speaker 1: They tell you they believe conversion therapy played a role.
Speaker 4: Yes, the mother says her daughter first opened up to
Speaker 4: a priest at her church when she was just fourteen
Speaker 4: years old.
Speaker 1: However, the church denies any conversion therapy was done. I froze,
Speaker 1: my blood went cold, and it felt like time stopped.
Speaker 1: You See, I recognized the kind of religious community that
Speaker 1: Alana was a part of, the kind of counsel and
Speaker 1: therapy she allegedly received that promised to convert her sexuality,
Speaker 1: even the way the church responded. I recognized these things because,
Speaker 1: even though I'm a decade older than her, Alana's story
Speaker 1: sounded strikingly similar to mine. I went on Facebook and
Speaker 1: started searching. I found Alana's mother, who had just posted
Speaker 1: about how Alana had sought a controversial kind of therapy
Speaker 1: against her parents' wishes, overcome with I don't know what
Speaker 1: I wrote to her, sharing things I never talk about
Speaker 1: with anyone, things I've kept secret. I told her about
Speaker 1: how I'd always wanted to be a priest when I
Speaker 1: grew up, that to me, conversion therapy wasn't a buzzword.
Speaker 1: I'd spent my twenties trying to change my sexual orientation
Speaker 1: and even sought one of the most acclaimed Catholic therapists
Speaker 1: to help me, and I shared how important the church
Speaker 1: still was in my life. I had no expectations that
Speaker 1: she would get back to me. I just wanted her
Speaker 1: to know that maybe someone out there understood. A few
Speaker 1: months later, Alana's mother, Joyce, wrote back to me and
Speaker 1: we talked on the phone. Her grief was palpable. She
Speaker 1: shared memories of Alana and blamed herself for not knowing
Speaker 1: earlier or doing more. We stayed in touch like this
Speaker 1: over the months, through emails and phone calls. Sometimes she'd
Speaker 1: send a single text in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: saying I miss her so much. While all of this
Speaker 1: might seem like any other tragedy, just another example of
Speaker 1: a young life cut too short, I wonder if there's
Speaker 1: more to this story. Memories that I thought were behind
Speaker 1: me keep flooding back, and my gut tells me there's
Speaker 1: more to her death than what's been in the news.
Speaker 1: I need to know. How does someone who seemed to
Speaker 1: do everything right go from wanting to become a nun
Speaker 1: to telling reporters that if there is a God, he
Speaker 1: doesn't need me talking to him anymore. This is the
Speaker 1: story of a girl caught between earnest faith and the
Speaker 1: American culture wars, teenage rebellion and spiritual manipulation, the promise
Speaker 1: of purity and the price we pay to belong. And
Speaker 1: this is my story of how a girl I never
Speaker 1: met would turn my faith my life upside down. From
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, I'm simon Kent phone and this is Dear Alana,
Speaker 1: Part one. Mom. It's been a year and a half
Speaker 1: since I first reached out to Alana's mother, Joyce. She
Speaker 1: texted me earlier in the day and we talked about
Speaker 1: how great it would be to finally meet up in person.
Speaker 1: Having just spent time with my family for my birthday,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about Alana and her family a lot.
Speaker 1: Joyce has had a hard time going through alana stuff,
Speaker 1: and she mentioned that she wants to write a book
Speaker 1: about her one day making a trip out to Bolder.
Speaker 1: Maybe I could help her organize Alana's computer and fix
Speaker 1: her email, that sort of thing. I glanced down at
Speaker 1: my dog, Sophie, who looks up from the couch in
Speaker 1: my one bedroom apartment. My box of work stuff still unpacked,
Speaker 1: painfully obvious. I have nothing tethering me here, so I
Speaker 1: book a flight to Colorado. As I pick up my
Speaker 1: rental car and drive towards Boulder, I'm struck by how
Speaker 1: flat and wide this part of Colorado is compared to
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Everything feels spread out, just passed by a
Speaker 1: tattoo and art gallery. In between each city are stretches
Speaker 1: of cornfields and ranchland and dominoes and nail salons. But
Speaker 1: the sky is everywhere. The sky and the mountains are everywhere.
Speaker 1: As I pull up into the parking lot of our
Speaker 1: apartment complex, I can't believe I'm finally going to meet
Speaker 1: this woman who I've been texting and talking with for
Speaker 1: so long. Joyce, a dark haired woman, calls to me
Speaker 1: from the second floor. She comes down to let me in.
Speaker 7: Oh, I can't believe.
Speaker 3: I can't believe either. This is so surreal.
Speaker 4: You look great.
Speaker 3: You look great.
Speaker 7: I know it's little makeup, can do some.
Speaker 1: Joyce is tall and striking in person, with a dark
Speaker 1: olive complexion and a wide smile. She's sixty and has
Speaker 1: this disarming yoga mom energy. She lives alone on the
Speaker 1: outskirts of Boulder, having gotten divorced, about eight months ago,
Speaker 1: while Alana's father, Mike kept the house. The kids have
Speaker 1: all moved away, and Joyce and Mike share custody of
Speaker 1: their two dogs, who are with her this week. Her
Speaker 1: small apartment is full of light and tastefully decorated with
Speaker 1: white furniture. Beautiful, look at how the time's play sauce.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I have a lot of ha hona in here.
Speaker 1: She eagerly shows me around it really well.
Speaker 7: That's her picture from her birthday.
Speaker 1: Along the walls of the entrance is one of the
Speaker 1: last photos of Alana, had tilted and holding two packages
Speaker 1: in her hands. I recognize this photo from the missing
Speaker 1: person's police report.
Speaker 7: That was right two months before she passed.
Speaker 1: She was so happy. Yeah, and then but what were
Speaker 1: the gifts that she's holding.
Speaker 7: Oh, some of my friends they got her hiking socks
Speaker 7: because she loved to go hiking and climbing. Oh yeah,
Speaker 7: And then it's funny these shoes. She was also like outdoorsy.
Speaker 7: But then she'd do fashion like she'd pick something like that,
Speaker 7: and I'd be like, I'd never wear.
Speaker 3: Something like that.
Speaker 7: But we went to the monastery for that retreat that
Speaker 7: was October, and there's a thrift shop. So she picked
Speaker 7: those out and some cold pants and that's the art.
Speaker 7: She did that in high school.
Speaker 1: No way, We're standing in front of an impressive canvas
Speaker 1: of pink and crimson flowers, stained glass.
Speaker 7: You know what it looks like, stained glass. Everybody says
Speaker 7: that she made it out of pieces of magazine.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: She's got a great eye.
Speaker 7: Yeah, she was so artistic finally before, like she finally
Speaker 7: said I'm gonna I'm gonna be an artist. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 7: that's what you already are. But I have so I'll
Speaker 7: show you, but take it any ice water or silsa water.
Speaker 1: Alana was born in October of nineteen ninety five, the
Speaker 1: third of four children. Compared to her routier siblings, Alana
Speaker 1: was the shy, sensitive, empathetic kid.
Speaker 8: I feel like she had this quiet, but really funny
Speaker 8: sense of humor.
Speaker 1: This is Carissa, Alana's older sister, two years apart. The
Speaker 1: more I learn about Alana, the more this picture of
Speaker 1: a quiet, bright goofball emerges.
Speaker 8: Like She'll tell you these stories and you're just like,
Speaker 8: what on earth you dislocated your shoulder and then put
Speaker 8: it back in place on her own.
Speaker 1: She remembers the first time she tried to throw a
Speaker 1: party while her parents.
Speaker 8: Were away, and she was like, why are you cleaning
Speaker 8: so much? I was like, oh, I just want to
Speaker 8: have a clean house. So mom and dad are gone
Speaker 8: for the weekend.
Speaker 1: Alana quickly caught on after seeing the bags of alcohol
Speaker 1: in Carissa's bedroom.
Speaker 8: And then she texted me a few hours later and
Speaker 8: she was like, I know you're having a party tonight.
Speaker 3: Don't lie to me.
Speaker 8: I don't care, but don't let anyone sleep in my room.
Speaker 8: And I was like, okay, fair.
Speaker 1: Carissa threw the party, all was well.
Speaker 8: A whole year passes by and she decides to tell
Speaker 8: my mom because she can't hold it in any longer.
Speaker 8: And my mom was like, you're grounded. I was like,
Speaker 8: for what, She's like, one year ago you had a
Speaker 8: party and so Anna told me about it, and I
Speaker 8: was just like, Ahna, are you kidding me? And my
Speaker 8: mom was so upset. She was like, you made your
Speaker 8: sister keep that from me all this time. I was like,
Speaker 8: wh I didn't realize it was bothering her so much,
Speaker 8: Like that was annoying to me.
Speaker 1: Back at the apartment, Joyce is going through some family photos.
Speaker 7: So let's mix. Mother, he's full Chinese. He was born
Speaker 7: in the US in New York, and your background is
Speaker 7: my mom. Her parents were Puerto Rican and then my
Speaker 7: dad was born in Brooklyn, but his parents were Italian.
Speaker 7: Oh cool, Yeah, so it's quite a mix.
Speaker 1: She continues the tour.
Speaker 3: Little altar.
Speaker 1: She shows me piles of mementos she's assembled into makeshift altars,
Speaker 1: a bunch of objects grouped around a photo of Alana.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and this was in her room. She r really
Speaker 7: loved Saint Trez and she got me this in Rwanda.
Speaker 3: Mmm, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeahving She picks up a bible that belonged to her
Speaker 1: father and points to a bronze medallion with the Serenity
Speaker 1: prayer etched in it.
Speaker 7: And you had this, which was crazy cause it's from
Speaker 7: ellen On And I was like, God, did he got own?
Speaker 7: It was just because my crime, my mom was making
Speaker 7: them crazy.
Speaker 1: Joyce is really open about her alcoholism and recovery. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's alcoholics Anonymous that sets into motion her search for
Speaker 1: a spiritual home for her family.
Speaker 7: When I got sober, I was twenty eight and I
Speaker 7: was in Boulder, and I wouldn't go to church. And
Speaker 7: my mom would call me. At twenty eight, we were
Speaker 7: a church Sunday and I was like, no, AA is
Speaker 7: my church. And I just felt that way.
Speaker 1: As her kids got a little older, she started to
Speaker 1: change her mind.
Speaker 7: I remember when Sammy was at the age of communion.
Speaker 7: Then I just felt like I want them to have
Speaker 7: that because when I was in AA, I used to
Speaker 7: say my higher power is Jesus. I just felt like, God,
Speaker 7: we all need something, you know, prayer, life, something like that.
Speaker 7: But that brought me back to the church, which was
Speaker 7: a struggle.
Speaker 1: She ended up church shopping, first joining a gospel choir
Speaker 1: at a Presbyterian church, which exposed her to different denominations,
Speaker 1: and eventually landing at Sad Heart of Mary, a Catholic
Speaker 1: church in Boulder.
Speaker 7: So one day after church, because I, you know, I
Speaker 7: could tell they weren't into into it, the college students
Speaker 7: came up and made announcement at the pulpit about this
Speaker 7: camp and they were they seemed funny, they seemed like
Speaker 7: college students, really cool.
Speaker 1: Joyce thought this would be a great opportunity to get
Speaker 1: her kids interested in God.
Speaker 7: So I asked them and they were like no, no, no,
Speaker 7: like no way, We're going that camp, and then all
Speaker 7: of a sudden, I don't have the college students heard
Speaker 7: us talking, but all of a sudden one of them
Speaker 7: came over and she was for the sweetest one and
Speaker 7: seeing the nicest and not weird, and she was just like, oh,
Speaker 7: come on, guys, you know you could just try. It's
Speaker 7: gonna be so much fun. And she actually got on
Speaker 7: her knees. It was a little weird, and she was like,
Speaker 7: come on, come on, come, and you know they're so
Speaker 7: good and sweet. They were like, okay, well try one.
Speaker 1: The kids ended up going to the first day of camp,
Speaker 1: and they came back that night really excited.
Speaker 7: Alana and Chrisa were sitting at the table, the kitchen table,
Speaker 7: and they were like, mom, it was so good. It
Speaker 7: was so good. And their tears were rolling down their
Speaker 7: face and I was like, why are you crying, and
Speaker 7: they were saying, well, we were hearing stories, you know,
Speaker 7: like it was just about someone was rape, some serious stuff.
Speaker 7: I thought for their age. And then but they found
Speaker 7: God and they loved Jesus so much and they're so
Speaker 7: happy and they overcame this and I, you know, I
Speaker 7: remember thinking, well, I hear people speak in twelve step
Speaker 7: programs and it's very moving. You always get to the
Speaker 7: end where it's like wow, great, And so I was
Speaker 7: a little concerned and I asked a little bit more questions,
Speaker 7: and then I just they were just like, we loved it.
Speaker 1: They finished the rest of the week at camp, and
Speaker 1: that's when Joyce remembers a change in Alana, who's thirteen
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 7: The very next Sunday in Mass in the same church,
Speaker 7: Alana was on the edge of the pew and she
Speaker 7: was sitting up and she had her hands in prayer,
Speaker 7: and she was like focused night and day, like doing
Speaker 7: everything perfectly that you need to do in the Mass.
Speaker 7: And then I remember it asking her because she was
Speaker 7: even more devout, and I said, what are you doing?
Speaker 7: She goes, well, we learned what to do in between
Speaker 7: these things that the regular people do during Mass.
Speaker 1: Most run of the mill Catholics are barely following along
Speaker 1: and probably spacing out. But the really devout ones, the
Speaker 1: ones in the know, know, for example, that after the
Speaker 1: priest has handed out communion, that's the time to be
Speaker 1: in quiet reflection and give thanks for having received the
Speaker 1: Body of Christ.
Speaker 7: I mean, I just was shocked. I was shocked, but.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this marks the beginning of Alana's
Speaker 1: deepening interest in Catholicism. Yeah, we're in Joyce's walk in
Speaker 1: closet and rummaging through a box of Alana's keepsakes.
Speaker 7: She wrote this, she's really, really, really super religious. When
Speaker 7: she wrote so this is twenty fifteen, she wrote, raise
Speaker 7: a glad cry, you barren and who never bore a child,
Speaker 7: break forth in jubilant song, you who have never been
Speaker 7: in labor. For more numerous are the children of the
Speaker 7: deserted wife than the children of her who has a husband,
Speaker 7: says the Lord. Is this from the Bible? Yeah, do
Speaker 7: not fear. You shall not be put to shame for
Speaker 7: the shame of your youth. You shall forget the reproach
Speaker 7: of your widowhood no longer.
Speaker 1: Remember, as we poke around the closet, I look up
Speaker 1: and spot two large piles of spiral notebooks. Are those
Speaker 1: all the diaries?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: The world it was she had so many of these,
Speaker 7: like notebooks and notebooks and notebooks.
Speaker 1: Over the last two years, Joyce has been telling me
Speaker 1: about Alana's journals. She found nearly two dozen of them
Speaker 1: in Alana's bedroom, and she's eager to show them to
Speaker 1: me and hopes that I might have some insight. I
Speaker 1: help Joyce carry them off the shelf.
Speaker 7: Ugh, this is twenty fifteen, Simon, what age would.
Speaker 1: You have since you have been nineteen? Yeah? What was
Speaker 1: anything interesting there?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 7: First, she's writing, this is how firm a foundation? How
Speaker 7: firm a foundation, you say to the Lord is laid
Speaker 7: for your faith in his excellent word.
Speaker 3: It looks like it's a song.
Speaker 1: That's a found you says.
Speaker 7: And then she writes maybe she wrote a poem, or
Speaker 7: is this a hymn too? I will come to you
Speaker 7: in the silence, I will lift you from all your fear.
Speaker 1: I think it's hymn.
Speaker 7: And then she writes, Jesus, you keep answering my prayers. Yeah,
Speaker 7: save me from the sin of a pusori apostasy.
Speaker 1: That's a medieval term meaning abandoning the faith.
Speaker 7: Teach me, please, teach me to angelized, to proclaim to
Speaker 7: live the faith in love, to speak of you at
Speaker 7: home and abroad. Amen.
Speaker 1: I've written these same prayers in my journals, and in
Speaker 1: reading Alana's words, I feel a little less alone. I
Speaker 1: don't know anyone else who as a teen was this
Speaker 1: focused on God. Joyce tells me that Alana also stood
Speaker 1: out for her religiosity. She was known around town as
Speaker 1: the Saint, and not just because of her prayers.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, what this is a letter from Shorty.
Speaker 7: Shorty was an alcoholic that Elana met under the bridge
Speaker 7: in balder and would read the Bible to her. Shorty
Speaker 7: lost her children. She was like the worst drunk I
Speaker 7: met her, and Alana got her into this program to
Speaker 7: get sober and Surety says, Hi, Alana, how are you doing.
Speaker 7: I pray you're doing well and in good spirits. I
Speaker 7: know the last letter you wrote you were having kind
Speaker 7: of a crummy time. I don't know if I told
Speaker 7: you that I moved last week. Now I've obtained permanent housing.
Speaker 7: That's a chance in a lifetime thing. So I have
Speaker 7: my very own apartment and it's brand new and never
Speaker 7: been lived in it. I am stoked.
Speaker 9: She was keeping in touch.
Speaker 7: Wow, this is the.
Speaker 9: Kind of stuff she did.
Speaker 1: We find a few other letters like this, including one
Speaker 1: from an inmate whu Alana evidently visited in jail. And
Speaker 1: you can tell from these letters that Alana wasn't just
Speaker 1: some drop in do gooder. She really had a relationship
Speaker 1: with these people.
Speaker 9: She was always like helping these people.
Speaker 1: As we paged through her journals, we find plenty of
Speaker 1: entries showing a young girl's enthusiasm for her faith, transcriptions
Speaker 1: of prayers, and Novena's little to do lists. Clean the car,
Speaker 1: call in, go to the bank, plan for the Rwanda trip,
Speaker 1: Read Evangeli Gaudium, the book by the Pope.
Speaker 7: Talking ticket, practice Hebrew.
Speaker 1: And then we come across something different, and look.
Speaker 7: At this, she writes. Not good enough, not good example
Speaker 7: for kids, shy, never say the right thing, Useless, dry,
Speaker 7: free loader, not a good Catholic, ugly, not important, stupid, annoying, distracted,
Speaker 7: God gave up on me. Blame careless, nothing to say
Speaker 7: God for everything. Bad daughter, don't show appreciation and patient, cocky, silent,
Speaker 7: never defending God. Outcasts, can't talk to Father, deep because failure.
Speaker 7: Only think of myself. Not a good friend, not a
Speaker 7: team player, mean, too joy, angry, jealous, will never love enough,
Speaker 7: self conscious, never live up to the Saints, confused to
Speaker 7: tempt it, not pure. All I care about is Frisbee.
Speaker 1: She turns the page.
Speaker 7: God, I love you. Take all this crap, remove it,
Speaker 7: overcome it, Teach me your ways, Love me carry me.
Speaker 7: I keep trying to leave you, but I want you.
Speaker 7: I want to live for you. I don't want anything
Speaker 7: between you and me. Amen love alone.
Speaker 1: Oh this is crazy, Simon, all this weight that Alana
Speaker 1: carried on her own without anyone knowing. She's so hard
Speaker 1: on herself. And I wonder if Joyce ever noticed this.
Speaker 1: When Alana was a kid. Was she always trying to
Speaker 1: be perfect?
Speaker 3: Even as like a little kid.
Speaker 7: Any thing she said wanted that. She was always trying
Speaker 7: to be perfect. And she knew that we liked math
Speaker 7: and science, and she got the best grades to keep
Speaker 7: us happy, and she didn't want to I got to fight,
Speaker 7: so she would just never do anything.
Speaker 1: To get trouble. Joyce looks at me and narrows her eyes.
Speaker 9: You feel like I need to make it a sandwich?
Speaker 3: Anything?
Speaker 9: Is that?
Speaker 1: Just like a Even with all that's going on, she
Speaker 1: manages to be unintentionally funny.
Speaker 7: This was I was telling you about this that I
Speaker 7: found this on her keyboard. It would just like kind
Speaker 7: of showed up and.
Speaker 1: I'm in Joyce's apartment and she holds up a folded
Speaker 1: letter with Alana's own curly handwriting.
Speaker 7: Do you, dear Alana, you are just a little girl.
Speaker 7: But you really don't like yourself. What if I told
Speaker 7: you that I love who you are. I love you
Speaker 7: how you are and how you will be tomorrow. You
Speaker 7: have beautiful hair and a beautiful face, and your family
Speaker 7: would miss.
Speaker 6: You if you were gone.
Speaker 1: She takes a breath.
Speaker 7: Dear Alana, I don't know what to say. I don't no,
Speaker 7: I don't know what drove you to.
Speaker 6: Hurt yourself so badly. You were all alone? Why were
Speaker 6: you all alone? I know you don't understand how you
Speaker 6: can be loved or redeemed. I wish you could see
Speaker 6: that the people that love you, the people that matter,
Speaker 6: they don't hold you to those standards. They don't see
Speaker 6: you as defiled. They don't see you as someone that
Speaker 6: needs to be fixed or different than who you are.
Speaker 6: The people that love you are still with you. Those
Speaker 6: other people that left, that walked away, that couldn't follow you,
Speaker 6: they couldn't handle your light, they couldn't handle the shock,
Speaker 6: the surprise. They were too weak to see you for
Speaker 6: who you really are. But your mother, your real mother,
Speaker 6: and your real father, and your brother and sisters, they
Speaker 6: have walked with you. They see you, and now I
Speaker 6: see you, and I love you so much. So I
Speaker 6: read this with the memorial and like it was really
Speaker 6: hard to But I don't know, like if she wrote
Speaker 6: this the night before, I don't know, another time maybe,
Speaker 6: But it's so beautiful but so sod.
Speaker 3: As.
Speaker 1: I imagine Alana writing this letter to herself. My heart breaks.
Speaker 1: But that's not the only emotion I'm feeling. I'm feeling
Speaker 1: something stirring inside of me, a combination of fear and dread.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because everything Joyce is reading to me feels
Speaker 1: so eerily familiar. I remember my earnest zeal, my spiritual rumination,
Speaker 1: my feeling of being abandoned, and if I'm honest, it's
Speaker 1: all stuff I'm still working through and I can't help
Speaker 1: but wonder why I'm here and Alana's not. On Monday,
Speaker 1: December ninth, twenty nineteen, Alana Chen died by suicide. You
Speaker 1: may not understand how a young person so deeply in
Speaker 1: love with God would want to take their own life,
Speaker 1: but I do. I've been to that dark place where
Speaker 1: the light seems so far away at the end of
Speaker 1: a long day. Joyce is sitting across from me on
Speaker 1: the floor, and there are papers everywhere. The giant tupperware
Speaker 1: box looks like it's exploded.
Speaker 3: Open.
Speaker 7: Organize this, lady. Yeah, I'm never gonna you will.
Speaker 1: I can, all right, let's put this away.
Speaker 3: It'll be here.
Speaker 7: She's never going to write this.
Speaker 9: Because I want to just stand half of it, oppen.
Speaker 1: I can feel Joyce's desperation, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: already have so much to tell her about my own
Speaker 1: life and how it might relate to Alana's. But am
Speaker 1: I ready to go there? And what does this say
Speaker 1: about a church I still know and love. I look
Speaker 1: at Joyce surrounded by the notebooks, artwork, and photographs, her
Speaker 1: daughter's life laid out on the hardwood floor, and then
Speaker 1: I feel something else. It's a feeling of conviction. I
Speaker 1: have to help her understand what happened to Alana.
Speaker 3: I will follow you, follow you wherever you might go.
Speaker 1: Next time on Dear Olana, Today, twenty two young women
Speaker 1: will begin their journey toward becoming a nun. How Alana's
Speaker 1: decision to become a nun is solidified when a controversial
Speaker 1: priest offers her spiritual direction.
Speaker 3: I will follow you ever since you touched my hand.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Dear Alana was created hosted and written by me Simon
Speaker 1: kentfang And is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association
Speaker 1: with a Slept Audio and the Center for Independent Documentary.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Laurie Puliski, who also composed the music.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Tracy leeds Kaplan. Additional music by Makeup
Speaker 1: and Vanity. Set sales and distribution by iHeartMedia. Our credit song,
Speaker 1: I Will Follow You is by to Loose. Show notes
Speaker 1: and resources can be found on our website Diarlana dot com.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please take time to follow
Speaker 1: the show, rate and review.
Speaker 3: There is no Suti monton so high keep me away
Speaker 3: away from the long.
Speaker 1: Coming up this season.
Speaker 7: I didn't want her to see him, and then she
Speaker 7: was sneaking on the phone, and then like I'm here.
Speaker 7: I am the mother who's bidding my daughter to see
Speaker 7: a priest and to become a nun. And it was
Speaker 7: what she wanted. It made her happy, but I didn't
Speaker 7: know what since she confessed, I didn't know she was
Speaker 7: attracted to girls. No, she didn't tell me. She told him.
Speaker 7: She confessed to him.
Speaker 4: We believe that homosexuality is a symptom of early childhood trauma.
Speaker 4: We get the client to address those traumas and they
Speaker 4: will just experience a diminishment in their same sex attraction.
Speaker 8: It was like a big deal at the ten that
Speaker 8: she was going on this date and he picked her up,
Speaker 8: and like we had all met him. He's super nice,
Speaker 8: he's handsome.
Speaker 3: She brought me upstairs and so I don't know, what
Speaker 3: is that?
Speaker 1: Did you do this to yourself?
Speaker 3: I was like, what did you do?
Speaker 1: Dear Alana is an eight part series released weekly. If
Speaker 1: you can't wait until next week, subscribe to tenderfoot Plus
Speaker 1: so you can binge the entire series right now, ad free.
Speaker 1: Head to Apple Podcasts or tenorfoot plus dot com to
Speaker 1: subscribe now.
Speaker 3: MHM